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50% More Efficient Nanowire Solar Panels February 21, 2019

Gallium arsenide nanowires can convert up to 33% of incident light to electricity if arranged like a stand of trees. A team at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EFPL, because my French is merde) has made a prototype of these light funnels and found that it may collect up to twelve times the light. Where did I get that 50% figure in the headline? That’s the “in practice” value (33% efficiency), compared to the conversion of silicon-based cells (currently[0] about 20% efficient).

Also, since they are really skinny wires, there isn’t much mass which is good considering the cost of gallium arsenide. When I say skinny here I mean tens of nanometers thick: “Arrays of nanowires would use at least 10 000 times less gallium arsenide, allowing for industrial use of this costly material. Translating this into dollars for gallium arsenide, the cost would only be $10 per square meter instead of $100 000.”

Right then, let’s review: cheaper, lighter and more efficient. The team thinks they can mount them on flexible substrates, too, so there should be additional deployment modes.